Position accepted
By Lauren Hanvey
Staff Reporter

DePaul University history professor Susan Ramirez said Monday she will formally accept the history department’s Nevill G. Penrose Chair of Latin American Studies.

R. Lee Woodward Jr., the current Penrose Chair, said the history department started thinking about potential candidates for the endowed chair position after he announced last spring that he would retire at the end of this academic year. The search was nationally advertised in September, he said. There were 19 candidates that were then narrowed to two by February, he said.

Woodward said Ramirez will be an asset to the history department.

“In addition to her superb scholarly credentials and wide teaching experience, she impressed us as a very congenial and pleasant colleague who would fit in well at TCU,” Woodward said.

Ramirez will work mostly with graduate students and be expected to continue researching and publishing her work, said Clayton Brown, history department chairman. She will also attend conferences as a representative of TCU and recruit students for Latin American Studies, he said.

Ramirez said she spent her Spring Break doing research in Lima, Peru. She said via e- mail that she is excited about the chance to work with TCU students and to share her knowledge of Latin America with them.

“I am at a point in my career where it is important to pass along the methodological pointers that I have learned working as a professional historian and, particularly, how best to write the history of societies with cultures very different from our own,” she said.

Woodward said Ramirez’s biggest potential challenges may be attracting high-quality graduate students into the Ph.D. program and finding good job placement for them when they graduate.

Heather Judge, a Ph.D. candidate in Latin American Studies, said Ramirez could be of assistance in her dissertation research because both women are interested in the history of indigenous people.

“She can offer criticism and commentary from a complementary perspective,” Judge said. “(Ramirez) shows great interest in areas one might think would be outside of her research.”

Ramirez will actually be the first woman to hold an endowed chair position in the history department, Brown said. However, he said hiring a woman is nothing new because there are four other female faculty members already in the department.

“We’re very excited about having her here; she’s very well qualified,” Brown said. “She’s just going to blend right in very well.”

Ramirez said she will work hard to surpass expectations of her. She said she really looks forward to working with the students and faculty at TCU, but that after 20 years at De Paul University, it will be difficult to make the move to Fort Worth.

“Major adjustments (will) include finding my way around, finding a place to live, finding a dentist, physician and a hair dresser — don’t laugh — and getting to know all my new colleagues and students,” she said.

Lauren Hanvey